Oedipus

As in other Senecan tragedies, a messenger delivers important information toward the end of the play. In keeping with the traditions of Greek tragedy, the pivotal act of violence takes place offstage. Through the messenger’s speech, the audience hears both a recounting of Oedipus’s actions from an observer’s perspective, while also accessing Oedipus’s own emotions through the messenger’s relaying of Oedipus’s words.

Seneca’s ordering of events differs from Sophocles’s. Sophocles has Jocasta hang herself first, with Oedipus blinding himself afterward using her clothing pins. Seneca’s Oedipus blinds himself by pulling out his eyes before Jocasta even fully admits her sin. In Seneca’s retelling, Oedipus takes full responsibility for his actions in his blinding, rather than reacting to Jocasta’s death.

Oedipus’s reaction reveals that he has become fully aware and realizes his crimes. In Roman tragedies, the punishment needed to be larger than the crime committed. Due to the severity of his crime, Oedipus struggles to find a suitable punishment and thus “rages with himself and plans something / Huge to match his fate” (925-926). When he considers suicide, he dismisses it as it is “[s]o brief / A penalty for monstrous crime” (936-937). To make his punishment suit the crime, he decides that instead he must “be eternally reborn—to be punished / Each time anew” (946-947). His decision to blind himself reflects the metaphorical blindness that unwittingly led him into fulfilling the prophecy.

The chorus’s declarations about fate express the play’s dominant theme: The chorus warns that humans are unable to change their fates. They also identify Oedipus’s primary, flawed motivation: fear. According to the chorus, this is a common fault as “[m]any come to their fate / Through fear of fate” (994-995). By commenting on the tragedy that has befallen a royal character, the chorus illustrates how unavoidable this punishment is: Whether high-born or a common subject, fate applies to all men equally.